INVITATIONS: The briefing is open to the press and the public, but RSVP is needed to get access to the ILRI compound. (see below)

The current famine engulfing the Horn of Africa and threatening the lives of nearly 13 million people continues to dominate discussions about development worldwide. As relief efforts continue, experts and stakeholders from the region will gather in Nairobi to discuss longer-term evidence-based solutions and interventions needed to avert the profound effects of predicted extreme weather events in the future.

Although droughts can result in failed harvests, they do not have to result in famine. Famine mainly has to do with inappropriate policies, conflicts and neglect, which reduce people’s access to food, grazing for livestock, and water for both. We must support agencies delivering emergency aid today.

And we must do more.

Almost everyone living in the drought-afflicted areas of the Horn produces food from these drylands. Research into dryland agricultural and natural resources thus plays a critical role in uncovering the causes of food shortages and identifying ways of reducing these. Linking smallholder farmers and herders with research knowledge, products and innovations – from better uses of land, water and other natural resources, to better grazing and pasture management, to weather-based insurance that protects against drought and other shocks, to drought-tolerant crops – could greatly enhance the resilience of vulnerable dryland communities to future droughts.

Experts within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) will meet in Nairobi on 1 September with a few selected development partners to discuss how CGIAR research can be used to find long-term solutions to improving and sustaining agricultural livelihoods in the drylands.

For more information and to RSVP, contact:
Jeff Haskins at +254 729 871 422 – jhaskins(at)burnesscommunications(dot)com
Meredith Braden at +254 713 234 806 – mbraden(at)burnesscommunications(dot)com
(RSVP is needed to get access to the compound)

Advertisements

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

About this Blog

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for sustainable rural development with the funders of such research. This blog delivers news about all aspects of the partnership’s efforts to bolster developing country agriculture in the face of global climate change and other looming threats to food security.